Russian attack kills 49, including 6-year-old boy, in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, says Kyiv

A Russian attack killed at least 49 people, including a six-year-old boy, in a village in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine on Thursday, Ukrainian officials said.

Kharkiv region governor Oleh Synehubov said that a cafe and a shop had been attacked at around 13:15 (10:15 GMT) in the village of Hroza in the Kupyansk district of Kharkiv, and that many civilians had been there at the time.

“The rescuers continue to work on the site,” Synehubov said on the Telegram messaging app.

Officials posted footage of rescue workers clambering through smoldering rubble. Bodies lay alongside slabs of concrete and twisted metal.

It was not immediately clear whether Russian forces, who invaded Ukraine 19 months ago, had shelled the village or had fired a missile.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who was attending a summit with European leaders in Spain, said that “the Russian terror should be stopped”.

“Now we are talking with European leaders, in particular, about strengthening our air defence, about strengthening our soldiers, about giving our country protection from terror,” he said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.